


One Day

by trane



Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: Canon Divergence, Drama, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Post-Canon, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trane/pseuds/trane
Summary: Protecting Daniels was protocol. Synthetics did not love.





	One Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [specialrhino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/specialrhino/gifts).



> In which Walter got back on the ship instead of David 8, and they make it to Origae-6. :)
> 
> Hope you have a happy Yuletide!

Protecting Daniels was protocol.  Synthetics did not love.

The colony was not yet built on Origae-6 when the first annual day of memoriam was established to honor those who died during the mission to get everyone to the new world, because humans required the commemoration of life in order to heal themselves.  They called it the Wishing.

"Because we wished for this place," Daniels explained to him once.  "And now we wish that they knew we made it."

Walter waited outside the log cabin he was helping her build by the lake and set down the pillar of wood he was carrying for the porch that only existed as a blueprint outside the skeleton framework of the house they put together so far.  It was slow progress since Daniels accepted help from no one except Walter and, occasionally, Tennessee.

"This will be our home," she said one morning after crawling out of the tent she slept in outside the shell of the cabin during its construction.  "We should build it together."

He tried to understand why her smile did not look like the ones she gave him when miscommunication between them caused her amusement.  He only understood when she walked away from the worktable and went over to check the foundation.  She left the small square note she filled out for the ritual burning where all that gathered at the Wishing ceremony would leave behind written notes of thanks to be set on fire together.  Walter's understanding was that the people believed their gratitude would pass on to the spirits of those that died and satisfy the human need to acknowledge their loss.  Daniels' note did not thank anyone.  It said simply:

_Jake._

He did his best to keep her mind occupied for the rest of the afternoon until the ceremony that night in the name of productivity.  Still, she cried quietly at his side when they joined the crowd gathered in the big open field.  He watched the fire with the others, knowing he had failed in his protocol to properly care for her mental and physical well-being.  She dropped her head to his shoulder, and though he did not understand why his failure no longer felt as acute as it had a moment before, he did not move away.

****

On the day of the second year of the Wishing, he was determined to do a better job at fulfilling his caretaking duties.

Daniels stared at the cabin from the front yard, curled fist at her mouth and brow furrowed in concentration.  The cabin was complete.  Furniture had been moved inside.  Her things were put away.  Still, she did not sleep in it.  For the past three weeks, she continued to return to the sleeping bag in her tent.

He came to her side and tried to see what she saw, tried to understand her hesitance in order to resolve it.

"It matches the design to its exact specifications."  He made sure of that, going so far as to scrapping sections that were measurably off by centimeters and correcting human errors to create the home she wanted in as close to a perfect replica of the blueprint as was rationally possible.

"It's off.  Somehow," she murmured thoughtfully.  "It's off."

He conveyed his confusion to Tennessee at the Wishing ceremony in the hopes that he would know what required correction.

"What's wrong, you can't do nothing about, man," he told him with a shake of his head.  "She was going to live in that house with her husband, start this new life, get that happily ever after shit we all signed up for.  That's gone.  You can't fix the cabin for her, Walter.  Only time is going to do that."

It may have been best to defer to his judgment on the matter, but in compliance with his directive to watch over the crew, Walter left the ceremony early and spent the night carefully comparing the blueprint to the finished cabin one square foot at a time.

Daniels returned at one in the morning, slightly inebriated but able to focus when he reported his findings room by room.  Her eyes shined, catching in the moonlight in a curious way as he went through the list of corrections he had made during construction to alleviate any concerns she might have for the structural integrity of the cabin.

"Okay."

He looked up from the blueprint he was holding open, and she gave him a watery smile.

"I'll move into the house now."  She squeezed his arm.  "Thank you, Walter."

The insistence that he must, in some way he could not see, have made a mistake in his efforts to help her in her cabin building venture finally eased at the warmth in her gaze.  The uncomfortable nagging that required him to correct where he had gone wrong finally settled.

"Happy to help."

****

By the third year of the Wishing, they were settled in at the cabin and into a routine.  Daniels was not reclusive to the point of raising concern, but she did appear happiest when they were on their own at the lake.  He didn't mind her preference for solitude and quiet company.  He shared it.

A soft knock on his door roused him from his work at the desk.  Daniels let herself in.  He stood from his chair, but she sat on his desk and pushed herself back to lean against the wall.  He appreciated her proximity.

He did perimeter checks periodically throughout the night before the cabin was finished and she was still sleeping outside in a tent to ensure her safety.  Readings and scans of the planet yielded results that comfortably assured him that there were none of the creatures there that they encountered before.  The wildlife was not a danger.  The tent was warm enough to sustain life.  Against reason, he checked the area every night anyway.  The persistent need for extreme caution lessened somewhat when they moved into the cabin, and he was aware of her location inside the much sturdier shelter.

It was not always caution that her nearness relieved.  Even when safe, when his directive to protect and serve was not at risk of failure, he was partial to her being close.  Daniels reading in the window seat of the kitchen while he cooked her dinner, Daniels accompanying him into the woods with an ax to help gather wood for the fireplace despite him being able to do the job on his own, Daniels inviting him to join her for a run even though he did not require exercise to remain fit and functional: he was not as busy on Origae-6 as he was on the Covenant, but his time was spent in ways that settled him when it was measured in Daniels' company.

She waited until he was back in his chair before picking up the piece of paper he was sketching on.  It was not done.  He would have preferred to show her his idea after it was complete, but Daniels' preferences took priority.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

It was the rough draft of his plans for the dock and boathouse he intended to build for her along the lake.

"I do.  Can I make a correction?"

He was unaware of a mistake.  "Of course."

She set the paper down and picked up his pencil.  Where he had neatly written 'Daniels' Boathouse', she added a note on top with an arrow to make it say 'Daniels' _and Walter's_ Boathouse'.

"This place is ours," she reminded him.  "Right?"

He looked down at the paper.  "Right."

That night at the Wishing ceremony, he paid careful attention to her from his spot at the fringe of the crowd by the bonfire.  He peeked at her note before they left.  This year, it said: _'The lake.  Thank you for the lake, J.  It is the perfect place to live.  You were right.'_  She was with Tennessee, speaking quietly but mostly silent, and when she placed her note of thanks into the fire there were tears in her eyes.

He frowned and returned home without her to continue work on the plans for the boathouse.  It was best to keep a sad mind occupied.  He would suggest that she help him on the final details and would attempt to start the actual building process as soon as possible.  A boathouse, he was sure, would help to ease her mind.  Materialism and property acquirement was central to the human pursuit of happiness.

If the boathouse did not work, he would inquire about her feelings for gazeboes.

****

Their fourth year on Origae-6 had proven to be his favorite.  Daniels threw herself into his projects with as much enthusiasm as he had hoped.  She enjoyed the work but stayed with him during breaks as well, drinking lemonade in the grass while he carefully sawed through wooden planks or talking to him about something funny that T had said during their last visit.  She was happy by his own assessment, certainly at ease.  He was, however, wary of the Wishing when it came around again, the day that circled back and attempted to undo all of his hard work to maintain her health and stability every year.

It was his private analysis that humans would have been better off without drawing attention to anniversaries.

Walter watched Daniels walk down the long dock to him in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.  He supposed she would change for the ceremony when they got back to the cabin later.  The sun was still high in the sky.  They had plenty of time to take the rowboat that he finished earlier in the week out on the lake without being late for the Wishing.

"Are you ready?"

She smiled up at him.  "Let's go, Captain."

It was her nearness that settled him.  It was her smiles that gave him what he equated with the human concept of peace.  He took her hand and helped her down into the boat.

It was small, built only for two with paddles attached to either side that he commanded from a bench seat across from her.  She leaned back on her arms, face tilted towards the sun, and was quiet.  The lake had a calming power over her.  She sometimes helped him build the dock, but mostly she came out and sat with him while he worked.

She spoke of her life before the Covenant, before deciding to settle with the rest of the colonists on Origae-6, before Jacob.  She talked about her parents and the occasional feeling of being ostracized from the other kids at school growing up, about recurring nightmares and favorite dreams.  He studied Daniels as he would a language, learning the rules and sense to the words; like math, understanding the technicalities that made clear solutions (1 + 1 would upset her, 2 + 2 would bring him one of those smiles he held dear); like history, filing her life away piece by piece as she offered it to him.

Daniels leaned against the side of the boat and let her arm drift down into the lake, fingers trailing through the water as he rowed them slowly out towards the center with trees on either shore and nothing but clear skies overhead.  One of the fingers on his prosthetic hand locked against the paddle, seizing his hand up for approximately 2.8 seconds.  He would need to remove and check its functionality when they returned.

"Walter," Daniels said while he was inspecting his palm.  "Walter, we're taking on water."

He looked at the floor of the boat in surprise.  There was indeed a small leakage of water beginning to push its way in from a splinter in the wood at their feet.  How odd.

"We are."  He looked at her, certain that nothing had been wrong with the construction and that no cracks had been revealed during his post-inspection.  He wanted her first time out on it to be relaxing.  He understood that residing in a sinking boat was cause for stress.  A failure in execution then.  "I apologize."

He looked for signs of anxiety, but there was no tremble in her movements as she pushed herself back into a sitting position, no sweat, or tears.  Instead, she smiled at him again, softer this time than before, and laughed.

"No, it's not on you," she said.  "This is on Tennessee.  He was checking out the boathouse this morning.  I heard a crash inside.  He must've bolted after setting the boat right again.  Probably didn't want to face your wrath."

That was an absurd reason for not reporting possible damage.

"I would not have shown wrath.  I would have repaired the damage."  He consciously removed the small frown from his face and returned to a neutral expression as he took a pragmatic assessment of the situation.  "We should return to the dock.  Based on the rate of entry of the water into the boat, I can get us back to shore before it goes under.  You do not need to be alarmed."

He was sure based on her fitness and the distance from the shore that she would have been able to make it back even if the boat sank that second, but humans were not always rational.

"I'm not alarmed, Walter."  She closed her eyes and relaxed against the boat even as her shoes got wet.  "I trust you."

"I appreciate that."

He made it a point to row at a faster speed than he had taking them out, just the same.  He climbed up onto the dock and pulled Daniels out first before he took care to bring the boat to land.  Her pants were wet up to her shins, but no damage was done.  She was not in any distress over the situation, so he logged her serenity in water related crises and went to the boathouse to fix what was damaged.

It was much later when he came back out and found her still out there.  Her shoes were removed, pants rolled up below her knees, and she sat at the edge of the dock with her feet in the water.  The sun had nearly sank behind the trees, casting long streaks of purple and orange over the horizon.  He went to her.  She pat the dock beside her, so he sat, legs crossed so they wouldn't go over the side and get wet.

"Thank you for the boat, Walter.  And the boathouse.  And the dock.  And the cabin."  She rested her hand on his leg, and he turned to her, feeling something unlike peace but close—something stronger and unruly.  "And the company."

"Of course.  If you want for anything, you need only ask."

He helped the colony when duty required, but his priority was Daniels—always.

"Just... sit with me?  That's pretty much the extent of what I want right now."

He had no objections.  However, "We should get ready to leave soon if we are to get to the Wishing in time."

Daniels' shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh, and she shook her head.  "No.  Not this year.  Let's stay on the water.  I don't want to go back."  Scooting closer to him, she rested her head on his shoulder and looked out over the darkening lake.  "I'm tired of going back..."

"As you wish."

She stiffened hesitantly and pulled back to look at him.  "Unless you want to go.  I don't mind staying back alone if you—"

"No.  I would prefer to stay with you."

Her face changed with smiles.  There were still memories in her eyes that showed her strength and resilience, but there was kindness too, a challenging gentleness that tempted him to respond.  He smiled back.

"Good."  She leaned against him, and this time he wrapped his arm around her.

Her comfort and peace of mind was integral to her well-being, he told himself as he held her.  Even if it brought him the same.

****

The harshest winter since they arrived on Origae-6 happened in their fifth year there.

Snow came early.  There were several elders in the colony that had not prepared for it in time.  Walter spent the morning loading up the large stack of lumber he piled next to the cabin for Daniels' use and went with her into town, far removed from their lakeside oasis, to unload it for those who could not provide for themselves.  That left them short on wood.

The two of them trekked into the woods behind the cabin, boots crunching over the thick layer of snow.  The bare trees loomed tall and powdered white all around them.  Daniels was walking slower than her usual gait allowed.  He turned to see her in her thick winter coat and hat, gloved hands tucked into her pockets, carefully walking in the footprints his own boots left behind.

"What are you doing?"

She glanced up, face half hidden behind her striped scarf, eyes gleaming with mischief.  "I'm luring you out into the woods to kill you.  This way, there will be no proof I came out here with you.  It's the perfect crime."

He tucked away a smile to keep from encouraging her but was not altogether successful.

"Aside from the fact that you could not take me in a one-on-one match, especially now that you've lost the element of surprise."

"Sure I could."  She hopped from one set of his footprints to another.  "You wouldn't fight back."

No, he supposed not.  It would have been confusing if she were to suddenly launch an assault against him, but he would not protect himself at her expense.  Whether she had what psychology books called a breakdown or was a well-skilled sociopath all along, it would not have served him to bring her harm.  Daniels was more to him than reason deemed possible.  She was, despite no such caveat in his core programming, essential.  Inexplicably, he functioned at full capacity in her presence.  His senses heightened.  His curiosity awoke.  His duty developed secondary status to serving her needs, independent of the colony's as a whole.  He would not hurt her, no.  Not for his life, artificial as it was.  Not for the life of any other, in any volume a hypothetical could present.  He would not hurt her ever.

"Why are you set on my murder, I wonder?" he asked since she was in the mood to tease, and considering the Wishing ceremony was upon them it seemed wise to encourage anything that might steer her away from melancholy, as inevitable as it was.  "I have done nothing to warrant such a scheme."

"Oh, yes you have."  Arms out at her sides for balance, she hopped from another set of footprints to the next that were spaced ahead from his longer strides.  "You're not as innocent as you'd like me to think.  It was either you that got into my hot chocolate supply or we have rats.  Or a ghost.  Or ghost rats."

The ice crunched beneath her feet as she missed the next prints and pressed her own into the snow.  Ignoring the clumsy mistake, she continued on as she was.

"Perhaps we should get an exorcist."  He glanced back and was rewarded with a glimpse of a smile as she stared down at the snow to carefully navigate his prints.

He'd made a cup of hot chocolate for Tennessee when he visited two days ago while Daniels was out.  He tended to pop around in the days leading up to the Wishing to check on Daniels.  It was not subtle, but he didn't think she minded.  As the only other surviving member of the crew, Tennessee mattered to her in a way that others could not.  Except Walter.  He was with her then and stayed with her since.  She depended on him, and that was gratifying in a way that work unconnected to her was not.

"You think you'll have a ghost when you die?" she asked, reaching out and catching herself on his arm as she teetered behind him.

"Synthetics do not die," he said even though he was unsure about the scope of what synthetics could and could not do.  He had been very wrong about such things in the past.  Synthetics, he used to believe, could not love either.  That was a lie he stopped telling himself after nights of Daniels falling asleep against him while reading on the couch and the rush of protectiveness that convinced him that he would give his other arm or his legs or his artificial life to keep her safe.

"If you powered off then," she insisted.  "You could stick around with me at the cabin.  With the ghost rats."

He smiled.  "If I find myself in the position, I will, of course, choose to haunt you rather than crossing over into... the light, I believe you call it.  What is beyond the light, Daniels?"

She slipped one gloved hand into his cold metal one and gave up on leaving no evidence behind, leaving footprints at his side as they weaved through a tight cluster of trees.

"I don't know.  Maybe nothing.  What do you think?"

He squeezed her hand, applying the exact amount of pressure he calculated would please her without discomfort.  "I believe that as long as I exist somewhere, you will exist there too."

Her breath came out in white puffs, nose pink from the cold.  He wished she would have agreed to stay inside where it was warm and let him come out there on his own, but she was stubborn and capable, unwilling to send him off into the woods on his own when the cabin today, he suspected, was too quiet to sit with by herself.  Her eyes crinkled with her smile.

"I believe that too."

Good, because the idea of separation did not sit well with him.

"You know what else I believe?" she asked.

"What's that?"

Daniels walked ahead towards the clearing where he had been chopping wood the day before.

"I think that—"  But he didn't get to know what she thought, because she slipped on an ice slicked piece of debris and went down in the snow with a short cry.

"Daniels?"

He went to her side, but she was sitting perfectly still and wasn't making a sound.

"It's okay," she said, too quiet, still not moving.

He frowned and squatted in front of her.  "What hurts?"

"It's okay."

"You've said that.  Now try the truth, so I may help you."

Daniels peered up at him with a self-deprecating smile that reassured him that she was on the lower end of the pain scale.

"Twisted my ankle.  It's not so bad."

Walters' frown deepened.  "I'm sorry."

She leaned back, hands crushed over the ice as she braced herself, and a shadow of amusement passed over her despite the wince of pain she was attempting to mask.  "Why?  Are you the stick I tripped on?"

"It's my job to take care of you."

"You're right," she said as he gently moved one of her arms around his shoulders.  "You're fired.  How dare you have not shoveled and melted all of the snow and ice in the entire woods.  This negligence will not be tolerated."

Walter got his other arm under her legs and picked her up.  She stifled a little moan as her ankle was jostled, and he took special care to crack the stick that tripped her under his boot as he started back through the trees.

She was terribly light in his arms, a frail human thing.  He would forge her into steel and replace the parts that aged into indestructible metals if he could, a thought that reminded him too much of David 8 and he dismissed as quickly as it came.  He would not change one weak cell or the mortal pump of her fragile heart.  Daniels was not unbreakable, but she was sturdy and strong.  What broke, he would mend; what was lost, he would replace as he had his hand, given freely for her protection.

She grit her teeth, arms around him, and was all too quiet for his comfort.

"Shall I bring you applicants?" he asked to distract her from the pain.  "To replace me as your protector."

A short laugh puffed warmly against his throat.  "Can't you just learn how to control the weather?"

He smiled and held her closer as he trekked out, looking at their prints beside each other where she had been lazy in disguising hers.  "I will recommend it as part of my next updates."

She recited a list of other recommendations as he made it back to the cabin and carried her up the steps to the porch: a magically refilling hot chocolate fountain added to his prosthetic arm, the ability to fly ("I wouldn't have tripped if we were flying to the clearing."), and "I don't know why you don't already have the ability to mute annoying people when they start talking; that's just poor engineering."

He set her up on the couch with a quilt and removed her boots.  She leaned back on the pillow he'd placed under her head and watched him as he compressed the injured ankle with an elastic wrap.

"It isn't broken," he assured her and elevated it above the level of her heart with a pillow.  He applied ice and left to retrieve pain relievers from the medicine cabinet.  She took them both without question, and he set the glass of water aside.  "Is there anything else I can get you?"

She smiled and reached for his hand.  "Sit with me?"

He looked at her hand but tilted his head to the side.  "I should get lumber."

"We have enough for tonight.  Come on."  She raised her hand higher, and he took it as he bent to carefully sit on the edge of the sofa beside her.  She kept hold of his hand, and he watched the change in her expression curiously, a subtle shift that he might not have noticed if he had not made a career of analyzing her.

"Daniels.  Do you need something?"

She gazed at their hands a moment before giving a small nod.  "Yeah.  I'm not up to going to the Wishing tonight.  Do you think you could take my Thanks to the fire for me?"

"Of course."

She fell asleep before it was time to go.  He checked her ankle before retrieving her note from her coat pocket and leaving for the ceremony.  The cold had not scared the community away.  The colonists were gathered in huge crowds in an empty field where a portable stage was set up.  One of Christopher Oram's cousins was reading a list of names of those that died from behind a podium.  Walter stopped when Jacob Branson's name was called and joined the moment of silence on Daniels' behalf.  He wondered if Branson had gone 'into the light' and what he had found there if so.  He hoped for Daniels' sake that it was a place she would have felt comforted to leave him.

He continued on through throngs of people in mittens and thick hats as the recitation of names was followed by the first in a long line of speakers prepared to give a testimonial of gratitude for those who sacrificed so that the rest of them could flourish.  Tennessee slapped his arm as he walked by for the fire, intent on performing his duty and returning to Daniels to monitor her over the night.

"Our girl here?" he asked.

"She is not."

"Yeah.  I wish I could stop coming.  Move on, you know, once and for all.  Dany mended her heart first, huh?"  He squeezed his arm.

Walter smiled, not knowing what he meant but hoping it was true.  Daniels deserved a strong and healthy heart.

He continued to the fire but paused in front of the tall flames after pulling the note from his pocket.  As he always did when given the opportunity, he read it, only to be caught by surprise at being addressed:

_Hey Walter,_

_I know you read this every year, and I know you think that being sad today reflects on you.  It doesn't.  Anniversaries are a hard thing, that's true.  Every year I send thanks for our crew, for our ship, for the people we lost, and T for making it with me.  And every year it isn't the whole truth, because every year I leave out the most important truth, the thing I am most grateful for today and every day since we arrived.  So in the spirit of gratitude, here is the truth._

_I am thankful for you, Walter._

_I am thankful for your friendship and partnership._

_I am thankful to have had you look out for me on the Covenant and here on Origae-6._

_I am thankful that I am not alone here when I thought Jake dying meant I would be alone everywhere, always.  You changed that for me._

_So this note isn't for the fire and isn't for the people we lost.  It's yours.  Like I am._

_Thank you, Walter, for being my best friend.  For giving me hope again.  For giving me someone to love.  I consider myself lucky that it's your duty to stick around.  I don't know what I would have done without you.  If you're in agreement, I'd like that to be something I never have to find out._

_That's my note this year, what I am most grateful for this day and every day:_

_You._

_xo Daniels_

He stayed by the fire for the rest of the ceremony, listening to the somber celebratory stories of their neighbors as they mourned what they lost and moved forward.

Daniels was sitting up against the cushions with a book open in her lap when he got back.  Her letter was folded up in his pocket.  She smiled as he stopped in the doorway to the living room that housed years of memories that they had built together: movie nights, human games that he had to orchestrate losses in after learning the rules in order to watch Daniels light up when she won, long talks after stoking the flames in the fireplace that taught him how to draw laughter from her even as he puzzled over why he wanted to do that.  The cabin was full of their lives, fused together, lived inside its walls.  And he understood.

Every year at the Wishing, Daniels urged him to send his own thanks into the fire, and every year he wrote one name on the piece of paper she handed him:

_Daniels._

It had not occurred to him that his name would find its way onto her note towards spirits and light that owed its existence only to faith and speculation.

"May I join you?" he asked.

She nodded.  Her hair was messy from sleep, her swollen ankle was still raised upon pillows, and she watched him like she had asked a question and was awaiting his answer.  She was his favorite thing, entirely, and if she had asked a question, his answer was—now and always—yes.

He sat on the edge of the couch, careful not to jostle her and hurt her injured leg.  He did not wait for her to find his hand as he often did, wanting contact but waiting for her to request it.  He took it now for himself.  With one hand on her cheek, he cupped her face and gently rubbed his thumb over her skin, warm from the fire.

She met his eyes and spoke softly, "It's rude to read other people's letters."

He tilted his head.  "I shall endeavor to remember that in the future."

"Add it to your programming," she said in a whisper even as her hand found the one he had between them and closed around the metal fingers.

"After the hot chocolate fountain and flying modifications," he promised.

The room was dark beyond the soft glow of the lamp on the table beside the couch and the flickering light of the fire that cast long shadows over the broken darkness across the floor.  It was quiet, the furniture sitting as a silent audience to Daniels tugging him closer, drawing him near.  He was unsure even then what it meant to need her close, how a synthetic lifeform could require something with no readily identifiable significance, yet the closer he got, the more that uncertainty shifted to curiosity and melted from a need for information to a desire to give in.

Leaning that close to her, he noticed her eyes were shining as they always did on this day, a day set to remember what they lost.  But it wasn't sadness that lit them.  Daniels was happy.  It was a relief to have done his job correctly at last.

"Walter?" she murmured, a question, to which as always, he answered.

Her smile was the last thing he saw before he pressed his lips to hers.  Her hands moved to the back of his neck, fingers pushing up into his hair as her mouth opened to him.  He held her close and kissed her as he had studied others do, noting the slow tilt of a head or the way their tongue pressed against their partner's.  He tried to efficiently copy the technique, but Daniels made a soft noise in response that he processed without reference.

He pulled back, feeling her breath against his lips as he asked, "Did I do that correctly?"

She was quiet a moment, eyes closing on a laugh.  "Yes, Walter.  You did."

He was glad to hear it.  Daniels' hands moved to his face, holding him there as her fingers smoothed over his hair.  Fondness rose in him at the affection in her gaze, mirroring it back tenfold.  Practice had served him well when acquiring a skill he was not preprogrammed with, so he was glad when she leaned in once more, going where she guided him.

And sitting together in their cabin by the lake, she kissed him back, still smiling.


End file.
